For me:
- Mo Ghile Mear
- Across the World
- O America
It's tough because I love all the songs so much and almost equally. I think I could make a pretty solid case for just about any song on the album being in my top three. But here's some explanation why I picked the ones I did.
O America:
- Sweeping orchestration, bagpipes, touching lyrics, and incredible harmony
- I greatly enjoyed the Songs from the Heart / Isle of Hope version, but I somehow enjoyed this even more
- Meav!!!
- I'm from Canada, but for me, this song is a Thank You from Celtic Woman to their largest fan base, to whom I am also deeply grateful. So this has special meaning to me.
Across the World:
- Earlier this year, before Mairead left, I was a bit worried what would happen to Celtic Woman if Mairead ever did leave the group
- I had read some posts on social media and in some show-reviews to the effect of "if the fiddler ever leaves, Celtic Woman is over."
- Would they ever be able to find someone that could take over for Mairead?
- Would the general fan base accept the new girl? Would long-time fans start to lose interest?
- I loved Tara from the moment we new she was going to join and she's done nothing but impress me since then. She's everything I could have hoped for and more.
- From the first time I heard this song, particularly the back half, I couldn't help but clap and cheer ... not just because it's an extremely fun song, but because I was so relieved that the fan base had accepted her, I couldn't help but cheer for Tara.
Mo Ghile Mear:
- For my other two choices, I really enjoyed the songs, but there was also some special meaning associated with them
- Mo Ghile Mear is just straight up my favourite song on the album
- They took one of my all-time favourite Celtic Woman songs, made it very different, yet succeeded in making it truly exceptional and in some ways even better than the original CW arrangement
- The percussion and orchestration is absolutely epic!
- The fiddler parts are just perfect. They're catchy, advance the pace of the song, and excite the heck out of me!
- If they were going to put a twist on CW classic, I couldn't have asked for them to do a better.
- Yes, the scaled back a bit on the buildup to the finale, but I honestly didn't mind.
- To me, this is one of the most fun and exhilarating arrangements Celtic Woman has ever produced! Given that I've loved pretty much every song they've done over the past 12+ years, that's saying a lot.